Illusions of Love
by NinjaSquirls
Summary: In retrospect, it had been a bad idea. Tonks should have known better than to think there'd ever be a time Sirius didn't stand between them. RLNT, RLSB implied. Slash.


A/N: --hides--I can't believe I actually wrote a lemon. I know I said I never would, but it was the only way I could really think of to do this fic - otherwise you don't really get the full idea of what is going on with Remus and Tonks' relationship. At least it's a vague, badly written lemon...Oh well - have to start somewhere, right? Presumably my ability to write kinky sex scenes will improve. On the fic - I've heard the theory batted around all the place pretty much ever since Book 6 came out. But not that many people seem to write it, so I decided to give it a swing. And really, this is the only way I can rationalize Remus/Tonks, especially since Remus never seems to be very happy with her. Hannah wasn't sure about passive-aggressive!Remus, but I think it fits what we saw of him in the last two books - the way he just tries to ignore Tonks' crush, the way he tries to run off with the Golden Trio when Tonks is pregnant, etc. This is not a guy who likes to face his demons.

Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned HP, the 7th Book might have actually made sense, and the 6th Book would never have existed at all.

* * *

**Illusions of Love**

Remus is aware, more than anything, of the hair, the long thick black hair that assaults his every sense. His fingers twine through it, drawing his partner closer for a kiss; it brushes his face and obscures his vision of steely eyes as he presses their lips harder together; when he moves his mouth to the nape of the neck, the scent fills him with every breath and he can nearly taste it when he bites down hard and lingers to lick eagerly.

This hair has haunted him for years, filling more dreams than he can count with vague sensory memories of strands of silk a darker black than a moonless sky, of the musty-sweet scent of cigarette smoke and strawberry shampoo and motorcycle grease.

Remus shudders at the dizzy rush of heat that floods him as he remembers those dreams, shudders and pulls his partner tighter, burying his face in that warm dark mane as he gasps and moans softly.

Another burst of searing fire and Remus forgets tenderness, forgets gentleness; there is only lust, hot and sharp and urgent, drawing him so taut that he can barely breathe, lost in the need to press as much skin together as humanly possible, to do something, _anything_, and _soon_.

"_Please_," a guttural, desperate whisper that shatters what is left of Remus' self-control, and with a feral growl he flips them both over, so his partner kneels before him, on hands and knees, with Remus hunched over behind, sharp knobs of backbone digging into his stomach.

In the dreams Remus has sometimes they lie face to face, eyes open to each other, but in the real world it is always like this, a rule they, or at least Remus, made long ago.

One hand dips downward, hesitant at first, but slowly finding a shaky rhythm of almost-cruel twisting and stretching that leaves his partner writhing and grasping at the sheets. The action is familiar, automatic, thoughtless; Remus concentrates on his other hand, on the path traced across sweat-sticky flesh by long, slender fingers.

His fingers seek out a thousand marks as well-known to him as his own. There are the long curves Remus remembers from their youth and the stark painful angles he has become accustomed to more recently. There are the sensitive patches of skin – knees, ears, stomach – where gentle caresses start a trembling Remus can feel against his chest. There are pale faded scars from school pranks gone wrong, and darker newer scars carved out by less innocent means. There are tattoos, art and violence and bad memories mingling freely on pale flesh.

It is a visible record of all the stories that Remus relives every night in his dreams. It is a map of a life, and Remus follows it with his fingers, feeling the flesh burn beneath him, wanting to commit every inch to memory.

When his fingertips brush strange and unfamiliar stretches of bare skin – smooth where it should be jaggedly scarred, pale where it should be freckled and dyed – Remus pretends not to notice, pressing his face against jet-black hair and inhaling in heaving pants, reminding himself that this is not the scent of a stranger.

And then his hand is shoved harshly away to a demand of "Now, please, _Merlin_, _Remus_," and Remus can't care about scars anymore as he makes his first, painfully slow thrust, exhaling in a steady hiss between clenched teeth.

Remus dreams that they make love, that they start slow and gentle and whisper tender words in each other's ears. The only word he can think of to describe what they are doing now, however, is fucking, plain and simple.

There is nothing slow, nothing gentle about it, certainly very little of love; this is nothing but pure animal lust, hard and brutal and hungry. This is no exalted, sacred joining – the only thing Remus feels is the blood pounding through his veins, the warmth scorching his skin; the way his nails dig into the pale flesh of a hip, while his other hand winds itself in black hair and jerks at it sharply, forcing his partner to arch against him; the violent, staggering rhythm as Remus moves in and out, hips shifting to bring them together and apart again and again.

Remus, however, doesn't really think about what it is that they are doing; he chooses to lose himself in the myriad sensations that are competing to drive his body wild. He doesn't want to hear whispered declarations of love. Instead his ears strain to pick out every sound made by the two of them: the rasp of sheets shifting under them; the solid thwack of the headboard against the wall; his own pants and strangled moans; the soft, keening cry of his partner, louder and higher as they get closer to the end.

With one last hard thrust and a whispered gasp of "_Remus!_" his partner goes rigid beneath him, and then sags limply in his arms. The unexpected tightness is too much for Remus; he flings his head back, and what emerges from his lips is not so much a scream as a howl, barely distinguishable as the name "Sirius!"

Remus screws his eyes shut as he reaches his peak, and when he is able to move again, he untangles himself from his partner, and stretches out beneath the thin blanket, facing the wall, his breathing quickly slipping into the even rhythm of sleep. He doesn't see his partner's body slowly change – limbs becoming shorter, body more slender, scars fading, hair transforming from silky black to spiky violet – before she curls up along his back, and falls asleep as well.

* * *

When Remus gets out of the shower, Tonks is sitting on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap, her hair that pathetic washed-out shade of mousy brown he has always associated with guilt.

"Remus," she says, and just from the tone of her voice, Remus feels something coil in his stomach, cold and sick.

"Remus," she says again, sounding more tired than Remus has ever heard her. "We can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?" he asks, without meeting her eyes.

"You know what," she says. "_This._ This game, this pretending – that I'm – and he's still – we have to _stop_ this, Remus."

Remus doesn't know quite how to look at her. "I know," he whispers, wanting her to understand that he really does. "It's just – you don't…"

"I do," she insists, and he hates the edge of resentment in her voice. "I know how hard it was for you to lose Sirius, especially after everything that happened. And I thought, if I could do this for you, that it would help – that you wouldn't miss him so much, that it wouldn't be so hard for you to accept that he was gone – I just wanted to help, Remus. I just wanted to keep you from hurting. But we can't – I can't do this anymore, Remus, I just can't."

Remus remembers the night after the Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts, when Tonks came into his room and made this offer. He remembers being appalled that she would suggest such a thing, remembers the earnest, pleading expression on her face, the reassuring pressure of her hand on his arm. He remembers the part of him that told him that was not the right thing to do, that he was taking advantage, and the part of him that just missed Sirius so much and would have done anything, and how that part was louder.

"I don't understand," he says finally. "You knew when you agreed to marry me. You knew what you were getting into. This was all your idea to begin with."

"I thought you would _move on_," Tonks cries. "I thought if I just gave you long enough, you would finish grieving for Sirius and move on, I thought if I just waited long enough, you would realize how much I loved you, and maybe start to care about me too, but you never do! You won't move on, you won't even try, you just keep going through the past over and over in your head, trying to make it so it's all your fault, or acting like if you pretend none of it happened, maybe it will all be right in the end. But what you're doing – what we're doing – it isn't right, Remus, it isn't normal, married couples don't act like this, they don't do this kind of thing. It's not fair to me, Remus. I can't live like this. Sirius is dead, and he's never coming back, and it's time you grew up and admitted it, and decided what you're going to do with yourself."

Remus slaps her, hard enough that the crack echoes in the room like an accusation. She raises a hand and gingerly touches her already reddening cheek, and her eyes never leave him, not even for a second.

"I'm pregnant, Remus," she says softly. "We can't keep doing this. You can't keep pretending I'm Sirius, just because you don't want him to be gone."

Remus turns away, hands shaking. He doesn't trust himself to answer her. "I can't do this," he mumbles. "I can't talk about this now."

"You have to face this eventually," she answers. "You can't keep running away, Remus."

Remus tries to remember a time when he could look Tonks in the eye, and can't. He bites his lip and runs a hand through his hair, and thinks of many possible things to say, but what he finally settles on is "I'm going to go downstairs and make tea, dear. What would you like?"

"Remus." Her voice is low and pleading and sad, and Remus doesn't hear it all.

The only person he ever really hears is Sirius, after all.

* * *

A/N: --peeks out-- is it awful? 


End file.
